HSSCM: Organizing for Success in Google Plus
October 16, 2018
I continue to collect examples of high school science club management methods. My thought is to extract the “principles” of this approach. With MBA programs looking at a decline in student enrollments, perhaps these ideas will spark some new thinking at these august institutions.
The source of this example is the write up “Now That Google+ Has Been Shuttered, I Should Air My Dirty Laundry on How Awful the Project and Exec Team Was.” The author worked at Google for eight months, if LinkedIn contains accurte information. These observations date from the period in 2011 and 2012. I pegged the Golden Era of Google as ending in 2006, so these observations come as Google’s trajectory to the “new and improved era” indicate the direction of movement at the online ad company.
I highlighted a handful of items from the essay, which I have edited to remove the language which might be offensive to some of the more educated residents of Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky:
Statement 1: “I’m still #%*/! about the bait and switch they pulled by telling me I’d be working on Chrome, then putting me on this god forsaken piece of #%*/! on day one.
Beyond Search goose observation: Ah, has. Get hired. Get assigned. Then condemned to prowling the Google internal comms system for teams you might want to join. In short, bait and switch or—more likely—disorganization within the Google personnel hobby shop.
Statement 2: The [Google interview] process felt very haphazard.
Beyond Search goose observation: Ah, disorganization. The implementation of “we’re so smart, whatever we do will work out”. High school science club members are quite confident their ideas are better than those generated by the doobies on the student council.
Statement 3: The CEO didn’t just have an office. The entire floor was his [the person with the four corner office is Larry Page, the flying car entrepreneur].
Beyond Search goose observation: One needs room in which to operate, to fly new ideas like Loon balloons and cars which take wing. HSSCM principle: Get the biggest: Company, money, online ad system, etc. The wrestling team can occupy a squalid corner of the locker room. That’s the area with splintered benches, bent lockers, and slime on the green and yellow tile.
Statement 4: During the 8 months I was there, culminating in me leading the redesign of his product, Vic [Gundotra, the former head of Google Plus and once a Microsoft wizard] didn’t say a word to me.
Beyond Search goose observation: Communication is for goofs. If you are Googley, you know what’s what. Don’t get it? Become a Xoogler or work on scripts for updating indexes in the building near the lawyers. HSSCC principle: Telepathy is a functional way to coordinate work.
Statement 5: If your team, say on Gmail or Android, was to integrate Google Plus’s features then your team would be awarded a 1.5-3x multiplier on top of your yearly bonus. Your bonus was already something like 15% of your salary. You read that correctly. A #%*/! ton of money to ruin the product you were building with bloated garbage that no one wanted.
Beyond Search goose observation: In the handbook of HSSCM, it is not necessary to obtain information from potential user and actual users of an online service. The idea is to make decisions motivated by compensation. Combine this with the Microsoft method of soliciting feedback and then ignoring, and the HSSCC approach ensures a certain distance between what’s created and what users actually want. I don’t want to go “William James” on you, gentle reader, but this type of disconnection is important to effective HSSCC methodology.
Statement 6:
Everything being produced felt disjointed or siloed. Not part of the whole. The M.O.[modus operandi, a Latin phrase in case you did not recognized the acronym] was build and copy as much #%*/! as possible.
Beyond Search goose observation: HSSCM principle: If an employee does not understand the objective, the employee is not Googley. Obviously the failure to tune into the correct wavelength proves the inferiority of the humanoid.
Statement 7: None of this stuff was tightly integrated. More of a layer on top of everything. I wanted to change that. This was Plus when I joined. Lots of sections. Lots of junk. Bad navigation.
Beyond Search goose observation: Notice the duplication. In the HSSCC approach, everyone can do his or her own thing. (Yep, even my science club in 1958 had a female member. She changed schools, probably because of the general behavior of the advanced class toward those in “regular” classes. Welcoming is not a word associated with HSSCM methods. Operative concept: Wrappers, fixes, and good enough plus telepathy. Excellent guidelines.
Statement 8: They [fellow Googlers] didn’t care about what was better.
Beyond Search goose observation: HSSCC management does not require excellence. Membership means recognition. Stomp on others in the club so you get the recognition. Cue the theme music from Fame. Excellence? When one is a Googler, that’s like water to a fish. Ergo: Kill the other fish. Get the water.
Onward to management effectiveness.
Stephen E Arnold, October 16, 2018
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